Jochen Weber - Photography |  Photo Documentaries


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A Visit to the Coffee
A photo documentary on coffee cultivation in Brazil

- Page 5 -

The Storage of Coffee (A small excursion) ('O armazenamento de café' / 'Uma excursão breve') The shelf life of coffee depends a lot on its processing state. With every processing step, it reduces considerably: Raw coffee can be stored without a problem for 12-24 months. It should be protected from light, stocked odourless and neither too dry nor too humid. Then the fresh odour (acidic) starts to slowly escape, but the earthy flavour just like with Robusta Coffee remains.  Roasted coffee beans lose their aroma much faster then raw coffee. If the valve packing or aluminum cans are opened once, the beans should be consumed within 2-3 weeks. The type of storage for coffee, be it as beans or ground, is arguable. It is agreed upon that as far as possible, coffee must be protected from light and oxygen. The spirits differ on the storage in the refrigerator. Some say, it must be kept in the refrigerator, for it to remain fresh longer; others believe that the low temperature is counter-productive. I personally store my coffee beans in the refrigerator. It should be ground shortly before brewing.  Ground Coffee: Once freshly ground, coffee loses its fresh flavour within hours or even minutes. That is the reason, why in bars coffee is always ground just before preparation. Once the vacuum packing is opened, the coffee should be stored as airtight as possible.

The Coffee Roasting ('A torrefação de café') Cooparaíso roasts the coffee for the personal requirements of particular shops with two small roasting machines in the foyer of the company. I could not unfortunately photograph the big Roasting House Partner because of industrial secrecy, however I was able to speak with the Roastmaster and learn immensely from him. The roasting machines have evolved a lot in the last few years. While the classic roasting process was still based on contact with hot material, i.e. roasting pan or roasting drum, the modern process of roasting is with air: through the movement of the beans in the heated air, an improved heat transmission has been developed, the heating of the roasting chamber from outside is thus avoided today. The formation of the aroma while roasting does not follow a uniform process. The different processes within the beans could have varying process curves, they must be considered differently subject to temperature and time. Thus, for e.g, the acidity in a coffee develops well in an earlier stage of the roasting process, but it then quickly loses on intensity. In contrast, the body develops at the end of the roasting process, whereby the aroma also forms with it. With dark roasting, the body changes more to a bitter substance, the roastmaster explains to me. And all of this is different for coffees from varying origins, type of processing and size of beans. Moreover, the process of roasting is crucial for the formation of the coffee aroma. One continues experimenting more and more successfully with various, short and different hot roasts for one coffee. In order that the roasting process is not left to chance or the form of its roastmaster on that day, the whole roasting process is left completely on the control of the roast machine. The control for every coffee is consigned to a so-called Roasting Profile, which ensures a constant, similar roasting process, where every second is clocked. This roasting process is more complex than I had imagined.

The International Coffee Trade ('O comércio internacional de café') Cooparaíso supplies coffee to the whole world. That is why it supervises the coffee prices, especially on the New York Exchange, regularly on a monitor in the management floor of the Co-operative (one observes the writing of the city of New York in Portuguese; BM&F stands for BM&FBOVESPA, the stock exchange of São Paulo). The two most important coffee exchanges are New York and London: In New York Arabica and in London Robusta-Coffee is traded. Price fluctuations are a part of the daily coffee trade, and have, aside from unavoidable influences on the environment, the following causes: Supply and demand vary considerably from year to year Currency fluctuations Fluctuation of additional costs for transport, insurance etc. Differential Business: The precisely defined basic quality of coffee by the Exchange serves as the general guideline in the coffee trade. Deviations from this are manifested in the difference of the actual market price, the so-called differential. As majority of the Brazilian Arabica Coffee (still) is not washed coffee, there is a price markdown for this on the NY Exchange.  The division of the coffee varieties on the stock exchange results out of, among other things, name of region of origin or port of shipment. Under “Brazil Santos NY2, 17/18” one understands for e.g, it to be a washed Arabica coffee, which corresponds to a fixed quality (=NY2) and has a specific bean size (sieve size 17/18). Only if the coffee is classified qualitatively, can the coffee in accordance to this data, be traded on the New York Exchange, also then without the above mentioned price reduction. The buyers purchase on the basis of this information, often without having seen or having tested a sample earlier. - - - In the past various organizations had started support projects in order to ensure the coffee producers a stable income. One of these is for e.g. Fair Trade: “Traditionally the share of prices paid by the end consumer in the producing country is the lowest, from which in turn only a small part of it goes to the coffee growers and workers of the plantation. The Fair Trade, to which coffee is the classic product, attempts to take into consideration and improve this difficult economic condition of the producers in the entire trading process. This has so far led to a different allocation in the value chain and thus a total increase in price for the buyer.”   (Source: Fair Trade) For more info: Click here!